


fox rain (sunshower)

by luca



Category: Winner (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-25 09:08:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10761111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luca/pseuds/luca
Summary: Jinwoo meets a nine-tailed fox.





	fox rain (sunshower)

Winter comes and Seunghoon goes.

“Don’t,” Jinwoo pleads. He isn’t hungry, they don’t need food. The forest is too dangerous and it’s better for them to stay inside. He doesn’t need to eat today, or tomorrow or tomorrow or tomorrow.

Seunghoon presses cold lips to Jinwoo’s temple and drags a kiss down to his ear. “I’ll come back,” he says.

He doesn’t.

  
  


_Have you seen my friend?_ Jinwoo asks the birds.

_Maybe, maybe,_ they reply. It’s been so awfully long and it is so hard to remember.

_Have you seen my friend?_ He asks the trees.

Their branches sway back and forth, leaves rustling and this is no. _No, we haven’t but the wind – the wind knows all._

The wind, and when Jinwoo asks, it whistles to him gently, softly, as if in fear of something great.

_Yes,_ it whispers. _Into the forest, into the forest. Go, go, quickly now, he’s waiting for you._

Quickly now and Jinwoo follows the direction of the breeze, into the forest. 

He wonders if he’ll make it back.

  
  


Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared. He is a monster but oh, what an incredibly beautiful monster he is. His tails fan out behind him like a plume of smoke and he is a mass of the finest lines carved from the finest stone. The gods have touched him and perhaps, they will grace you too.

“Excuse me,” Jinwoo says to the creature amongst the trees, a black shadow of nine with eyes that glow. Like the first stars of the night and the earth lives in him. “Have you seen my friend?”

The dark crawls to him on all fours, approaching closer, closer. He seems weary but then, when Jinwoo makes no move, he stands and lets his tails droop behind him like water. “I – I don’t think I have,” he murmurs, voice deep and quiet and shy. Perhaps Jinwoo was wrong when he called this one a monster. “I don’t remember very well.”

“Is there anybody else here?”

“Just me,” he says. Just me. How lonely and Jinwoo thinks he understands. “When did he… when did he come here?”

Jinwoo closes his eyes and tries to remember that retreating back, the warm lips against his skin. This way, he can’t forget the mistakes he’s made, his sins he hopes will be forgiven. “Yesterday,” he says, counting twenty four into his skin.

(Sooner, Jinwoo thinks. He should have acted sooner. He should have been a little firmer, held on a little longer. Should have, should have – 

But it is not yesterday anymore and you cannot survive on should have, you cannot eat what if, and regret does not get you to tomorrow.

So Jinwoo swallows it down, swallows it down, swallows it down, and wipes his hands clean.)

“Yesterday? He came here? Alone?” he asks because creatures do not understand the struggles of the desperate man, what he will do to live. Jinwoo holds his head a little higher.

“Yes. It’s winter and the food is scarce.”

“Right, right,” he mutters, licking his lips as if he understands. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. The area is large.” The wind blows, like a familiar voice, like a ghost of the forest. _Lies,_ it says. 

Jinwoo moves in closer. When he catches those nostrils flare ever slightly, he feels a tug on his line and reels it in. “Do I smell familiar?” he asks and there is a seed of something dark there, something horrible. Some kind of recognition, a fresh, raw memory and Jinwoo leaps at it to rip it open more – 

But then it is gone as soon as it had appeared and Jinwoo is left staring at something half-human and achingly familiar. 

“I don’t – I’m not – I’ve told you, my memory is bad,” it says and looks at him with eyes that had once told him they’d come back for him. “I’m sorry.” Jinwoo breathes and listens to it all. Thinking, thinking and he finally decides. He wonders whether this will be enough (for Seunghoon, for him to rest in peace).

“Are you lonely?” he asks finally when the trees still.

“What?”

“I am. Will you come home with me?”

“Home?” And it sounds lovely on his tongue, like some idea of warmth, some sense of belonging that is solely his. 

“Yes. If you’d like,” Jinwoo replies with a gentle smile and watches curiously as this dark shadow becomes a beacon of caught light, the filtered shimmer that cascades through the leaves. How tragically beautiful, this muted glow and Jinwoo finds himself part way entranced. He wonders how it would look like free.

“Are you sure? Me?” it says, a finger pointed to itself as if in disbelief. 

“You said it’s only you here. Who else would I be asking?”

Its shadow moves closer then, inching towards Jinwoo. “I’m a fox,” it says finally as if this is all Jinwoo needs to know. He is a fox with nine tails, a creature born of spilt blood and grief follows where he walks. He is danger and the sane do not seek him willingly – but Jinwoo hasn’t been sane since yesterday and he looks up into the trees above them, humming. 

“I know,” he says. _I can be one too._

Like a new born kit, he beams at him lovingly as if there lived in him an impossible hope, a sense of rebirth. Bounding up towards Jinwoo with springs and jumps, the light from the entrance spills upon him like molten gold. Part way phoenix, part way fox and he is something magic and tragic all at once.

“I’m Minho,” he says and Jinwoo smiles at him with a warm gaze made up of just the right amount of fondness. 

“Jinwoo,” he replies and Minho’s ears twitch. 

The forest replies back: _oh, we’ve heard that name before._

  
  


Empty rooms and silent halls, this is a wooden house with wooden floors. Small even for one but Minho bursts through and the light follows him in like rushing water. Suddenly, it doesn’t look too bad. He throws himself on a bed, less shy than before, and lets his red tails consume the room. They look like fire and Jinwoo wonders whether they burn like it too. 

“Amazing,” he says in wonder, running his clawed hands across the sheets as if he has never seen a bed before. “Is this all yours?”

“This is mine,” Jinwoo replies, falling into the one opposite. “That one isn’t.” That one, never made, with its rumpled sheets that smell of firewood and sun.

Minho’s mouth falls open in realisation. “Oh.” He springs off it immediately as if it were made of coal and moves to stand in the middle of the room. He shuffles on his bare feet awkwardly and Jinwoo feels something dangerous brewing within him, some sort of empathy he doesn’t want. “I’m sorry,” he says, belonging nowhere. 

Jinwoo looks at this bed of worn sheets and used blankets. This bed is not his bed. It is not his but he has slept in it and cried into its warmth and he feels partly responsible for it, for these pile of rags and blankets whose owner said he would return to it all. So, he says, “It’s fine,” and when Minho shuffles again in that space of nowhere, swallows the rest of his words and tries again. “You can use it until he gets back,” he decides finally. A bed is just a bed is just a bed, even this one, with its sheets of firewood and sun.

Minho’s mouth open and closes, as if he wants to say something more, but then he shuts it tight and falls back onto the sheets. “Right. Yeah, okay,” he murmurs lamely. “Thank you.” His eyes, when he looks at him, are wide and searching. They look familiar because they look like his, because those who’ve made their mistakes all look the same in the end. 

Jinwoo falls back onto his bed, staring at this fox who looks like him, and thinks of rain.

  
  


“Where are you going?”

Jinwoo shucks on a warm coat, wrapping a scarf around his mouth and neck. He gazes out the window to see the snowfall slow into white lights, sunbeams caught in its ice. “To collect firewood,” he replies. 

“But it’s so cold,” Minho says, huddled on the bed. His tails are wrapped around him like a blanket and he looks so much smaller than yesterday. Even then, like this, he is still majestic and this is the power of the fox, an enthrallment that consumes completely. 

Jinwoo shakes his head. He knows better, he cannot fall for these tricks. He doesn’t have time. There is someone waiting for him.

“It’ll be colder if I don’t,” he says, opening the door. The wind comes rushing in, as if it has been expecting him, and he shudders at its biting touch. 

“I’ll come help,” Minho says, leaping from the bed. 

Jinwoo turns around, a rejection on his tongue – he does not need the fox and he does not want him – but it dies when he catches sight of Minho. He stands on wobbly legs like a newborn calf, looking hopeful and expectant and vulnerable all over. This is a memory from someplace dangerous and it calls to Jinwoo achingly. He closes his eyes and hears the earth thrum. 

“Okay,” he finds himself saying. He looks Minho up and down, at the flimsy robes he wears, and takes off his scarf, handing it over. “Come on then.”

Like the morning, Minho lights up and winds the scarf around his neck. He sniffs lightly at it, as if Jinwoo can’t notice, before snuggling into it completely. Jinwoo looks away, his stomach churning, and rushes outside. 

Minho follows behind him clumsily with limbs too big for his body, stumbling over spindly roots and moss covered boulders and Jinwoo finds himself part-way enthralled. Hardly graceful but Minho’s gait is endearing and Jinwoo can’t look away. The snow melts against his skin and catches in his hair and he is loved by it all.

_Dangerous,_ the ice hisses. 

Jinwoo shudders, lifting his head up to a sky where the clouds hang low and watch closely. He brushes the snow off his clothes and hurries along forward, faster than before. He won’t lose focus. He digs his feet into the snow, and tries to hear the vibration of the ground, for a voice that says I’ll come back, a hope that stays with him always. The branches sway slowly, humming. 

A sudden, muted thump from behind wretches him away from it all and he spins around on his heels, alert and daring. He gleams the clearing, catching birds in their nests, great vines that coil themselves around trees with ridged mouths and – 

Minho lies across the snow, sprawled over an upturned root. He looks up at Jinwoo with a face too flushed for the cold and hurriedly scrambles to gather himself up. “Sorry. I’m not used to – to this,” he says. He gestures to his body, this form of his he has kept secret for too long and Jinwoo nods in understanding. A smile spreads across his lips before he knows it.

“Come on,” he says, his head tilted to the clearing. “Aren’t you going to help me?”

Minho brightens up immediately, like a puppy more than a fox. He bounds past him in leaps and Jinwoo watches him reach out on his toes to a branch hanging lowly, snapping it clean as if it was nothing. He looks back at him expectantly, the branch held high like a trophy but Jinwoo’s lips only stretch into a smile, wane around the edges, before bending down to pick one that had fallen from the storm. Minho’s grin drops as the blood rushes to his face.

“Oh – oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t – I thought…”

“It’s fine. Thank you,” Jinwoo says, taking the branch from his hands, broad and rough all over. “But you shouldn’t break branches. They’ll fall when they’re ready.”

Minho’s head droops still and his fingers move to bury themselves into his scarf. “You know a lot about the forest,” he murmurs.

Jinwoo hums, pressing his palm against the trunk of a tree. Its ridges curve along his skin, pressing themselves deeply. “I was born from it. It speaks to me. Isn’t it the same for you?”

“Yes, but I’m a fox.”

“Humans aren’t that different from animals.” 

“No, but you are,” Minho says, suddenly serious and Jinwoo’s gaze snaps towards him. His eyes glow like amber and he looks very much like the legends that have made him. “You smell different from the rest.” He inches closer, slowly, as if Jinwoo was prey. Closer, closer and Jinwoo thinks he can see the snowflakes against his lashes.

“Smell?” he asks, feeling the tremor in his voice. He steps back but Minho follows him through until the hollowed mouths of tree trunks dig into his back. He shivers.

If Minho notices, he does nothing to quell it. Instead, he leans down until his nose just grazes against flushed cheeks. Jinwoo sucks in a breath and holds it. “Yes. You don’t smell human,” he murmurs and his breath feels warm. “Not completely.” A flash of awareness burns deep in Minho’s eyes. Small but still there and it is a flame ready to be ignited. 

Jinwoo’s heart stutters in his chest. A piercing screech begins to howl inside his mind where it has been buried deep and he can’t contain it anymore, this side of him he tries to forget, he can’t – he can’t – 

Jinwoo flinches away almost violently, almost falling into the snow. Sharp pain blossoms in the palm of his hand as he spills branches onto the ground, but he can hardly register it over the thump thump thump in his head. It pounds deafeningly and he presses his hand against his ear, trying to suffocate it.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to –” Minho cries out, flying back as if burned, awakened from somewhere deep. He catches sight of the cut on Jinwoo’s palm and shrinks back even more. “I’m so sorry!”

Minho’s voice sounds submerged and Jinwoo can hardly hear it over the ringing in his ears. He breathes in counts of three and thinks of Seunghoon. The hammering dulls into something bearable. 

“It’s fine,” Jinwoo says, sounding hoarse. He catches sight of his hand, shaking in front of him as if not his own. A long cut tears through its centre, blood trailing down his arm. He goes to wipe a red strip on his trousers but Minho’s clawed fingers reach out to close around his wrist, holding him still. As gentle as his gaze and Jinwoo lets him, watching closely. 

Slowly, Minho bends his head down, sniffing slightly at his palm, before a pink tongue pokes out between his lips. Jinwoo sucks in a breath, feeling that rough tongue lap at the wound – up and down and lingering far longer than it needs to. For a moment, it tingles, sending shivers down his spine. The breeze flutters across his hand chillingly but this mouth is warm and tender and Jinwoo finds himself uncontrollably following it as Minho pulls away. Hesitantly, he is released. When he looks back down at his palm, he sees only unblemished skin and creases, slightly damp, as if his cut had never existed in the first place. He stares, fascinated, even though he has seen this before. 

“Is that – is that better?” Minho asks in whispers, looking far sorrier than he needs to be. He keeps his gaze down, digging his feet into the ice.

Jinwoo hums, looking up at him. The snow catches on the tip of his nose and he sees Minho, bathed in white. His head has stopped pounding, the air is still. “Yes,” he says. “Better.”

  
  


Here are the rice grains saved from last autumn when Seunghoon had been so insistent. Jinwoo takes half a cup of it, hardly enough, but he boils it down into mush and hopes his stomach will be fooled. 

From the table, Minho watches him intensely. It feels like a weight, heavy and intrusive and though Jinwoo tries to shake it off, the gaze of a fox is never easy to ignore. It latches onto him with claws that run deep and he chokes on it, on air too thick and porridge too thin. 

Finally, when he can’t stand it anymore, when his mouth has gone sour and the flick, flick, flick of a thousand tails have driven him part way mad, he stares into the face of a beast with his chin held high. “Are you hungry?” he asks, lifting up his bowl. Minho snaps up as if awoken from somewhere deep and he shakes his head, hands splayed out in front of him.

“No that’s – that’s fine. You eat. I’m fine,” he says but he continues to glare as if his stare could pierce holes. Jinwoo swirls his spoon around, watching the way Minho’s eyes spin with it. 

“I would have offered to make you breakfast earlier but I didn’t think you’d eat this,” he says knowingly, looking up through his lashes. Minho swallows, fingers flexing minutely. 

“No, I don’t.” 

Jinwoo hums, feeling something rotten brew within him. It bubbles hungrily and he drinks down his gruel, hoping it drowns. 

(But you cannot drown what you have been born from and he thinks of Seunghoon always.) 

“You eat what the forest gives you, don’t you? Whatever you find there,” he says and his mouth does not feel like a part of him anymore, nor the rest of his body. It hasn’t, he realises, for a very long time.

Minho sucks in a harsh breath that sounds deafening in this barren house. He looks as if he means to say something but his jaw clicks shut and he digs his nails into the table top instead. Jinwoo doesn’t feel so mighty anymore. 

When he finally gathers enough courage and abandons enough pride to glance his way, Minho isn’t looking at him at all. His gaze is fixed towards the door instead, fingers twitching as if ready to run. Jinwoo opens his mouth, not knowing what to say, only knowing he must say something, but Minho pushes himself up from the table before he can even speak. The chair falls behind him with a muted thud. The door slams shut with all the force of the breeze. Minho leaves without a word and Jinwoo lets him, telling himself he doesn’t care.

He gulps down the rest of his porridge alone, counting the marks scratched into the wood.

  
  


(There are nine.)

  
  


He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, but he counts three hours on his hands and thinks that three hours is a very long time. Three hours is three hours too long and the last time someone was gone for that long they stayed gone forever. 

The trees rustle and Jinwoo’s ear twitch in anticipation, waiting always. There are footsteps, he thinks, scraping along the cobbled steps. Silence again and then – a sudden thump just outside the door yanks Jinwoo out of his seat almost violently. 

He says, “It must be Seunghoon,” as if this is the reason why his body thrums and leaps in bounds – but his mind is still intact even if he isn’t and it knows it will not be Seunghoon, the one who left to a place he cannot come back from. It knows there is a fox waiting for him outside but Jinwoo runs to it anyway with an excitement he tries hard to deny. He flings open the door with too much force, sucking in a breath and – 

He sees the rivers cracked open, dyed red. Its waters run everywhere, pouring openly from the stag, soaking into the dirt beneath. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jinwoo knows this is familiar to him – but even then, there is still so much blood (too much, too much, he isn’t ready yet, he’s not prepared and where is Seunghoon? His Seunghoon who said he would save him from this all) and it consumes him entirely. Jinwoo wretches, a hand against the doorframe as he heaves dryly into his hand. His throat tightens painfully until he can hardly breathe. 

“Are you – are you alright?” Minho’s voice calls to him, sounding distant. Jinwoo’s head snaps up, still spinning. Minho comes to him then in spectacular clarity, worried and unsure and – and surprisingly clean. His mouth is clean, his robes are clean and he stands like a pillar of white light. Only then does Jinwoo realise that he is dripping wet. So forest rivers wash away blood and Jinwoo must try it sometime for himself. “I – I thought…” Minho stutters when Jinwoo says nothing. He tries to hide the stag behind him but he has never looked so small. “I thought maybe you could use some extra food. You’re so thin. You need to eat.”

Oh, Jinwoo realises. It all clicks into place. Suddenly, he feels guilty.

(But he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, he’s not the guilty one here, he’s not the one who – )

Jinwoo’s head feels too heavy for his body and it falls against the doorframe with a thud. He closes his eyes, seeing the stag still but seeing Minho even clearer and he thinks he can understand this fox who washes himself clean, wanting nothing more than to be liked. “Thank you,” he says, meaning it all. He looks up at him through his lashes and sees Minho’s smile burst from within him like something grand. 

“It’s no problem,” he beams, looking proud. He drags the stag to behind him to the back of the house, humming. 

Later, when he places a bowl of stew in front of him, Minho will say that he is fine, that he’ll have whatever mush Jinwoo was having before even as he licks the corners of his mouth. Jinwoo will know better, that foxes don’t survive on porridge, but Minho will be insistent and look at him with a softness he can’t refuse.

  
  


“Aren’t you going to help me?” Jinwoo asks after lunch, buttoning up his coat. 

Minho’s head slowly rises from where it had been glaring at his bowl of porridge. “What?” he replies, blearily and unfocused, and Jinwoo recognises this from long ago. Rice and water do little to fuel a fox’s fire, he has learned.

“Aren’t you going to help me? To forage. There may be some crops still left in the forest.”

Minho shoots up immediately, grabbing his scarf and winding it around his neck. His tails come alive with him, rising like the sea. “Right – right! Of course!” He runs towards the door and thrusts it open, a giant grin on his face. The breeze rushes in to greet him like an old friend and Jinwoo can’t help but smile back and follow him out the door. 

This time, Minho is more careful when he walks, pressing his feet into the snow slowly and weaving past stumps and large roots. Still off-balance in many ways but he tries earnestly and Jinwoo thinks he admires this very much. 

“What are we looking for?” he asks, looking over his shoulder. The forest clearing stretches in front of him, retreating into the light. 

“Hm, anything. Things we can eat, wood we can use,” Jinwoo replies and then, catching sight of a bush bearing bright fruit, rushes over to pluck them. “Oh, something like this!” he exclaims. Minho turns, catching sight of him and his hand full of fruit. 

Everything changes in an instant. 

“Don’t touch those!” he roars, a hand wrapped tightly around Jinwoo’s wrist. Jinwoo’s fingers open on reflex, spilling red berries on the forest floor and looks back at Minho. Minho, who has always spoken kindly and carefully, always too afraid to touch him, now red-faced and wild. Jinwoo stills immediately, feeling like an animal caught in a trap. Minho’s lips are drawn back, his teeth on display and Jinwoo has never seen him like this before, so completely the wild beast he is called. He swallows, inching away. 

The movement sobers Minho up immediately and in an instant, he releases him with a gasp. He flexes his hand, as if it had moved on its own, and looks up at Jinwoo through his fringe. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” he asks. He looks small again, ashamed, and Jinwoo feels some sinking feeling build in his gut. He’s seen this face before. 

“No, I’m fine,” he replies, though he feels his touch still on him like a vice, the pads of his fingers digging into his skin. 

“Sorry, it’s just – they’re poisonous,” Minho says, squishing some beneath his feet, and they bleed red too. Jinwoo finds he can’t look away.

“Oh. Oh. Thank you.”

“It’s always the pretty ones that will kill you,” Minho says, plucking some other fruit from a shrub and holding them out. “Here, these are better.”

Jinwoo accepts them with a smile warm enough to reassure Minho and they go back foraging, falling into a rhythm more familiar than it should be, as if nothing had happened at all.

When Minho turns around, Jinwoo picks up those pretty fruits and hides them in his sleeve. 

  
  


“What are you doing?”

At the sudden sound of Minho’s voice, Jinwoo jumps visibly, spilling rice across the bench. He hurriedly scoops them up, pouring them back into the bag. The berries, not yet prepared, not yet crushed and disguised, lie in a bowl and Jinwoo grabs at them too, shoving them into his pocket. 

“I’m – I’m making breakfast. For you,” he says, turning around. Minho only blinks blankly at him and for a second, Jinwoo’s heart plummets into his stomach. Did he – did he know, did he see? But then, all too soon, his lips morphs into a blinding grin that makes Jinwoo’s chest flutter for a different reason. 

“Really? For me?” he asks in disbelief. He looks, in that moment, so soft and gentle and Jinwoo finds he has never seen a face so kind. “Thank you but it’s alright. I can make my own.”

“No, no. I’ll – I can do it.”

“It’s fine. You rest,” Minho says, pulling him down to sit at the table and Jinwoo, drawn to him inexplicably, to his kind smile and soft stares, goes willingly. He looks at Jinwoo contemplatively, eyes roaming back and forth, and then, in a slow and deliberate movement, reaches out to cup his cheek. “You’ve been looking tired.”

Jinwoo doesn’t pull away and he doesn’t protest. He has been tired lately and Minho’s hand is so warm. He turns into it and feels dark eyes watching him closely still. Minho clears his throat and when he speaks next, his voice is a deep rumble that sends shivers down his spine. 

“Winter is hard on everybody and you’ve been through a lot but – but you don’t need to anymore. I’m here now,” he says, running his thumb against Jinwoo’s jaw. “I promise you I’ll make it so you won’t have to work a day in your life. You’ll have plenty.”

Some part of Jinwoo wants to laugh. What fool would believe that their worries would disappear when the fox arrives? But Minho says _I’m here now_ with such finality, as if he’ll never want for anything more in his life, and though Jinwoo knows he shouldn’t listen, that a fox’s power comes from its words, he stares up at Minho and sees only an adoration that overwhelms him completely. 

“Okay,” he says, smiling up at this fox who has ruined him entirely. “I’d like that.”

  
  


There is something powerful about sleep that washes away what you cannot. Beneath the glow of the moon, Minho looks so peaceful. There are no lines by his eyes, no creases by his mouth and he is nothing of that nervous, careful fox. He is pure in the way water is pure, in a way Jinwoo is not. Like this, he is captivating. Like this, Jinwoo realises, it is impossible to do what he must. Not when he sees Minho truly. These claws have not touched him cruelly, these teeth have not bitten him and he can’t – he can’t – 

He could not do it then with the dragon and his jewel and he cannot not do it now, with the fox and his naïve heart. 

He curls his fingers against the berries in his hand. With the other, he pulls up the blanket curled around Minho’s waist and, almost tenderly, runs a finger against the tip of his ear. Minho’s mouth twitches in his sleep in the smallest of smiles but Jinwoo thinks he has never seen anything more enchanting. 

This is not attachment, he convinces himself. But later, when he opens the window and tosses those fruits outside, he wonders if it is something more.

  
  


The fire crackles and pops, glowing mesmerizingly in the dark. As Jinwoo watches its flames rise up and ebb down like water flows, he wonders if he has done the right thing. 

“You can’t sleep?” a voice calls from behind but Jinwoo watches the fire still, entranced. He draws his knees up to his chin and hugs them tightly against his chest. 

“You can’t either.”

Minho comes up to sit beside him, leaving a gap between. He stretches out his hand, reaching towards that empty space, and digs his fingers in a rug worn and frayed. “Yes. I’ve been having – ” He coughs and Jinwoo catches him shaking his head as if that is all it takes to forget. “Nine-tailed foxes don’t need to sleep all that much,” he eventually settles for. This is not a complete lie but this is not a complete truth. Jinwoo hums, letting foxes do what foxes do best. His eyes flicker from the heat of the room to a sky like ash. The moon is full tonight and it casts its cold light over him mockingly. He shivers. 

“Are you cold?” Minho asks and Jinwoo suddenly feels the weight of his stare like an anchor. “I can bring in more firewood and I don’t really need to sleep with a blanket and well, it is technically yours so – ”

“No, I’m fine, I’m just thinking,” he cuts in because Minho talks too much for a fox that should be feared. He keeps his eyes on the fire, on the cold moon that says _you cannot be weak_ and burns it into his bones.

“Oh,” Minho says, licking his lips. “Well, um. I know it might be hard to believe but I think sometimes too, you know. And maybe – maybe you could talk to me about it? It might help,” he continues and then, as if just realising what he has just said, throws his hands out in front of him defensively. “Ah, not if you don’t want to though! Just a suggestion.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jinwoo sees him staring intently, his hand still pressed into that space between them. His face looks flushed and the firelight embraces him in a way it does to no other. Here is a creature loved by the earth and all it possesses and Jinwoo is a part of it entirely. His mouth moves on its own. 

“I’m thinking that I’ve made a mistake and I’m wondering if I’ve made another.” 

Minho swallows, pressing his fingers into the carpet. His voice is soft and slow when it speaks next, as if his words have been carefully plucked and planned. “Is it so bad to make mistakes?” he asks. 

Jinwoo draws in a sharp breath, hearing something more. “What?”

“Is it so bad? I mean everybody has done something wrong. It’s what makes you human, right?” he says so matter-of-factly, as if it is that simple (and perhaps it is that simple for other people, for those not like Jinwoo – he who was made human in other ways). 

“So you’ve never done wrong then?” Jinwoo asks.

“I have,” he says and it sounds like something more – but Minho lets it lie sleeping at that and Jinwoo is too cowardly to wake it. “But – but just because you may have done something bad doesn’t make you bad. To me, you’re a good person.”

“I’m not – ”

“You’re good to me,” Minho says with complete conviction, as if he truly believes it, as if he truly believes this boy of cold words and cruel secrets to be good. Jinwoo wonders what it must be like to be so clean. 

“I don’t think so,” he murmurs. He keeps his eyes on the sky and the moon gazes back knowingly. It has seen it all, the sins that stain him and it does not forget so easily. It loves the beasts of rain and clouds far too much to forget. “You’re wrong. I’m not – I’m not that at all.”

Minho turns to him fully, staring down at him. He reaches out at that space between them and presses the pads of his fingers against the back of Jinwoo’s hand. Jinwoo lets him, watching the fire burn orange against his skin. “That’s alright,” he says. “At the start, nobody really knows their worth. One day, you will. And then, you’ll be happy.”

Happy. Jinwoo breathes in this foreign word and thinks he would like that very much. Tentatively, he presses himself against Minho’s side and finds himself a step closer to it all. Warm and comforting, Minho tenses only for a moment before melting into him. A cautious arm wraps itself around Jinwoo’s shoulder and Minho’s thumb rubs soothingly against him, tracing the sky into his skin. 

Burying his head into the crook of Minho’s neck, he smells the rain-soaked dirt of spring and the sun-dried leaves of autumn. He sees his first home and his eyes flutter shut, thinking that, if there ever was such a thing as something good, then perhaps Minho came the closest to it – 

– him and Seunghoon and the dragon.

  
  


This is not attachment. 

Seunghoon, don’t worry. The fox is just useful and he is just lonely. It won’t hurt to let him be a while longer. He only wishes to make the most of him and then, once he is tired of it all, he’ll do what he must. This is all it is, nothing more. For him, there is no one who shines brighter than you. So, don’t worry Seunghoon. He will give you what was taken from you. 

You, who is eternal as the stars.

  
  


All bow down to the forest. It is the earth and the air combined and even legendary foxes with nine-tails made of fire cannot escape what it designs.

In this wooden house with wooden floors, Minho shivers on Jinwoo’s bed when he wakes the next day. His tails are wrapped around himself like a cocoon but even then, he snuffles into his sleeve and presses himself into a corner.

“Are you cold?” Jinwoo asks, smiling knowingly. 

Minho tilts his head up, sticking his nose into the air. “No, I’m a fox. I don’t get cold,” he replies.

“So foxes don’t get cold?”

“Not magical ones.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were _magical_ ,” Jinwoo says in mock wonder and laughs when Minho’s cheeks turn pink.

“I mean. Well. Not magical, you know. I’m like – ” He pauses, licking his lips. “I just don’t get cold.”

Jinwoo hums, muttering a sceptical _sure_ before opening the cupboard. He rummages through it, finding his too small sweaters and too short trousers and – oh. These – these would fit Minho perfectly. These old coats and frayed jumpers that feel familiar enough to make him remember, foreign enough to make him mourn. Once worn through, now never used and Jinwoo presses his nose into them, inhaling deeply. It smells like him still, of hot summer nights and crackling campfire. It smells like him and, if Jinwoo closes his eyes, he thinks he can imagine him here still too, alive and home. His head throbs. His chest aches. 

“Jinwoo?”

Jinwoo turns, finding Minho alert and shivering still. He looks so small then, so lost, and Jinwoo wonders how on earth he once thought this one to be a beast. He looks back down at the coat in his hands and hesitates. No, he can’t – he can’t do this. His hands are dirty enough. Placing it back in the wardrobe, he pulls out his own coat instead. It is too small for Minho but at least it doesn’t smell like boys who played in forest rivers and dried themselves in sunlight. 

“Here,” he says, thrusting it towards Minho. “Wear this.” 

Minho shakes his head stubbornly, coiling his tails around tighter. “I’m fine!” he says but Jinwoo pulls it around Minho’s shoulders anyway. 

“Wear it. You’re shivering. I won’t have you be cold if I can help it,” he says and shoots him a frown just as stubborn. Finally, Minho acquiesces, letting his tails fall around him. He holds the edges of the coat firmly around himself, sniffing lightly.

“Why are you nice to me?” Minho asks, completely sincere, as if he could not even imagine it possible for someone to ever like him, this creature of despair.

“Should I be mean to you?” Jinwoo replies. 

Minho’s grip tightens around the coat and his ears fall flat against his head. “No, you shouldn’t. I don’t think I could handle it if you were,” he mumbles. “But I – I want to know why you are so nice to me. So I can continue being it, whatever it is that makes you like me.”

Jinwoo feels his heart stutter in his chest. Liars know their own kind but Jinwoo looks at Minho and all he can see is an honesty that makes him ache. He can only give him the same. “You remind me of someone,” he says, swallowing. “You’re familiar to me.” 

“But I’m a fox,” Minho replies, looking at nothing. “A nine-tailed one.”

“You’ve told me that many times before.”

“People run away from me. They’re scared of me.”

“There are many stories about you and people are cautious. It’s expected. But you don’t want people like that around you anyway,” Jinwoo replies. This is the truth because, once, a very wise boy told him this and that boy spoke nothing but the truth. 

(But that was a long time ago, back when he was – when he was different, when he needed those words, and it is best to forget when he was different.)

Minho’s gaze flutters to him and it is a look so full of admiration that Jinwoo has to turn away. He has done nothing to deserve it. “You don’t listen to those stories,” Minho says with determination.

The forest howls outside the window, a voice saying don’t forget me. “I listen to something else.” Something worse, Jinwoo thinks.

But Minho shakes his head again, as if he knew everything about this boy of kept secrets because he gave him a house of wood and a coat of rain. “You are so kind. I don’t deserve you. After what I’ve done I – ”

“What you’ve done?” Jinwoo cuts in, suddenly alight and leaping. His heart wants to escape from his chest and he lunges at Minho, wanting to know for sure, wanting this confession. _Tell me_ , he thinks. _Tell me what you have done so that I can be cruel to you._ “What have you done?” 

“Nothing!” Minho cries out, too fast and too loud for it to believable. His hands shake but this, Jinwoo knows, is not from the cold. “Nothing. It’s nothing, sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying,” he says again slowly and looks up at Jinwoo with eyes big and searching. This is a fox lost and wounded and Jinwoo wonders what cruel god graced him with this piece from a past he tries hard to forget.

He swallows and closes his eyes. Some strange part of him wants to believe him and he decides that today, just today, he can let it go. There are so many more days ahead so it is okay, he thinks, to use today to be selfish. He falls into the bed and Minho’s hand reach out to brush against his forehead gently, as if he craves Jinwoo’s touch just as much as he craves his approval. 

“Okay, alright. If you say so,” Jinwoo says and Minho laces his fingers between Jinwoo’s own, holding onto it desperately. 

  
  


It takes a dead stag, a warm coat and countless nights awake but eventually, Minho finds his place in Jinwoo’s life. A constant presence beside him always but Jinwoo finds he can hardly mind when he can hardly remember what it feels like to be hungry or lonely or afraid. Even now, his company is welcoming as Jinwoo draws a bath, watching the steam rise like clouds. When he peels off his clothes and sinks into the water, Minho watches him still, more intense than before, and Jinwoo lets him. Exciting somehow and Jinwoo’s every move is deliberate and slow from the arch of his legs to the tilt of his head. In the background, Minho’s haggard breathing is loud against the stillness of his movements, restrained and taunt. When Jinwoo meets his gaze, he flushes endearingly and pretends to stare at the tub instead of the pretty boy soaking in it. Jinwoo grins. 

“What’s wrong? You’ve never had a bath before?” he asks.

Minho swallows, gaze darting to the window. “No, I have.”

Leaning over the side of the tub, Jinwoo smiles as he watches Minho flicker back and forth between him and anything else. “Then, what’s the problem?” he asks. “Join me.”

He says it just to tease because this rumoured fearsome fox is surprisingly more adorable than anything else. Unexpectedly though, Minho nods. “Alright,” he says, turning around and it is Jinwoo’s turn to follow his every move. His mouth hangs open mutely as he watches Minho untie his robes. It fall into a pool around his feet gracefully and reveals all. 

Jinwoo feels the air get knocked out of him.

Minho has always been beautiful. Always. Dark skin and dark eyes and the gods took care when they carved him. But this – this is different. Bare and open and Jinwoo feels his cheeks heat up as he watches Minho’s broad back, the way his muscles flex with every move. He seems so far above him, unworldly in every sense, and Jinwoo feels like a moon drawn to their earth. When Minho turns around, he buries himself deeper into the water and looks away. 

A hand lands on his shoulder, pushing gently, and he jumps, nerves frayed. When he turns around, Minho is looking down at him with an amused grin. He bends down, mouth too close to Jinwoo’s ears and Jinwoo has to remind himself this heat is from the water and nothing else. 

“Move forward. Please,” he says and Jinwoo blushes, shuffling immediately.

His heart is like a hummingbird in his chest as Minho lowers himself down. The water spills over the lip of the tub and Minho’s tails are too big to be contained. Even then, he settles there comfortably, just like always, just as it has always been, and Jinwoo finds himself relaxing into him unintentionally. 

“Oh,” he breathes out, unable to help it. He thinks he can hear Minho chuckling but it sounds almost distant. Wet fingers come up to brush the hair out of his face and Jinwoo turns into it as it starved.

“Shall I wash you?” a voice asks. Jinwoo hums, completely content, as rough hands run themselves over his shoulders, squeezing slightly. He comes undone beneath their movements, every ache and knot fading away. Lower, lower and they slide up and down his arms, over his chest, the water sliding between them. Jinwoo feels something stir in his gut and he pulls away, sitting up.

“Stop,” he gasps. The hands disappear immediately. 

“I’m sorry,” Minho says and though it sounds like him, it still sounds so far away. Jinwoo strains to hear him. He shakes his head, wondering if water had seeped into his ears. 

“It’s alright. I just – I just feel strange.”

“I think I understand,” Minho whispers against his temple and his voice is low and mesmerising. Jinwoo is drawn to it and he leans against him again, wanting to hear more. When he tilts his head up to lean against Minho’s shoulder, he sees light halo around him.

“You’re so – you’re so beautiful,” Jinwoo says and, for the first time in a long time, these words are his own. Minho laughs and the sound reverberates through him entirely until he feels it in his bones. 

“You too,” he says. “More than that, you’re more. My Jinwoo, my saviour.”

This must be a dream, Jinwoo thinks. It feels like it. Weightless and warm and it has been so long since he has felt like this. Lips press against the crown of his head in an almost phantom, unsure touch but Jinwoo leans into it, craving more. How nice. He must be forgetting something. He shouldn’t be feeling nice. A nagging thought pulls at the back of his mind and but it is so hard to focus when Minho touches him so gently, so tentatively, half afraid and half yearning. He looks down at him with all the adoration in the world and all Jinwoo sees is him – this boy, who has given him what he had once lost. 

He reaches out to touch the sun and it meets him half way, pressing a warm mouth against his cheek.

  
  


There are many kinds of alluring and Jinwoo has seen it all. First snow, first rain, first person who says to you, ‘you won’t be lonely anymore’ – but, as this great fox eats, he thinks he has never seen anything more captivating than this. This fox, with its nine tails sinking behind him, bathed in gold and half-asleep over a bowl of plain rice. 

“I thought nine-tailed foxes eat humans,” Jinwoo says offhandedly. He means nothing by it, truly. Only that he finds it strange for Minho to want only rice when the forest is full of animals that bow down to him. But Minho’s face sets hard anyway, mouth pressing into a fine line. He drops the spoon with a clack and keeps his eyes shut. Jinwoo watches his hands open and close, nails digging into his skin. He sucks in a breath, shuddering.

“We do,” he says, looking like stone. He opens his eyes, opens his palms and he bleeds from where his claws have pressed crescent moons into his skin. Jinwoo feels his gut sink. Somewhere, he wants to ignore it desperately. When Minho reaches out to touch his hand tentatively, he lets the heat of it consume him before those words do. “But I would never hurt you.” 

Jinwoo swallows, looking at Minho and seeing only a fox laid out bare made afraid by a boy who speaks to the earth. He looks back down at Minho’s bloodied hand, the way he holds it just so, so that this part of him never touches him. He bends down, pressing his lips to Minho’s fingers. “I know,” he says. 

The skies open and weep, as if in mourning.

  
  


When they come back from shovelling snow and picking up sticks, Minho tears away his coat and throws it across the room. He flops onto his bed (his bed now, his, and though it should sound strange and wrong, Jinwoo finds it fits more than it has fit anyone) and writhes against the covers, kicking off the blanket. 

Jinwoo follows him with a crease in his brow, sitting beside him. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Minho replies, even though he sweats in the middle of winter and speaks as if sandpaper grates at his throat. His pants come out in clouds and the skies have found their home in him too. 

“You look anxious.”

Minho’s gaze finds his, unfocused and dull. “I’m just – I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. I feel hot.”

“Hot?” Jinwoo rests a cool hand against Minho’s forehead and he presses up into it desperately. It feels like fires have set themselves aflame beneath his skin and Jinwoo pulls back as if burned by them. “Oh.” He feels his chest tighten, his throat closing up unbearably. The pounding in his head begins to stir again. He doubles over, feeling sick and helpless all over. He can’t – he doesn’t know what to do. Is this the food? The plain rice and water that makes even him ill? Or is it something more, something he can’t cure, something that needs that stone again to fix it up or – 

Only when Minho grasps his hand in his does he realise he’s shaking. 

“I’m fine though. Truly,” Minho assures him but Jinwoo sees through him like he always has. He shakes his head and pulls away to shuffle over towards the window. Outside, he sees the snow recede into an expanse of green grass and awakening trees but when he presses his forehead against the glass, the chill runs through him mockingly. 

He clasps his fingers around the edge of the window and it pulls it open. 

“No, no it’s okay. You’ll catch a cold. I’ll just go outside for a bit,” Minho protests but they have just come from outside, they have just come from the cold and he still burns fiercely and this is not right, this is not how it should be. Minho shouldn’t be sick, he shouldn’t be _hot_. He is the fox who lives forever, as old as the earth and he should rise like it does. So, Jinwoo ignores him and leaves the window open. The breeze rushes in as if it is starved for them and he shudders beneath its embrace. 

“Do you feel better?” Jinwoo asks, settling himself back down. Minho reaches out to him with a clammy hand and pulls him down completely, until Jinwoo slots against his body as if he was made to belong there. 

“I do now,” he murmurs, a grin across his face. His eyes begin to droop but he startles awake every time as if he cannot bare to see the dark. Throwing an arm and a leg over Jinwoo, he nuzzles into his neck and Jinwoo lets him. He wraps his arms around Minho and draws soothing circles into the nape of his neck.

“Come, let’s sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning,” he says. He pushes away the hair stuck to Minho’s skin and presses a kiss against his temple.

Minho agrees, nodding, and closes his eyes. His breathing evens but his body stays aflame, like a sun that does not set.

Jinwoo looks out the window, up at the skies, and wonders if the gods listen to prayers.

Or if his dragon still watches over him.

  
  


It is not so easy to be happy. It is not so easy because there are mistakes that you have made and these mistakes come with a debt you owe and people do not forget what is owed to them. They will not let you forget. In the day, the winds do not rest and at night – at night the boy who said he’d once come back for you returns. 

“Oh,” he says, in a voice unworldly. He looks at him and Jinwoo feels like he has done everything wrong and nothing right. “Have you replaced me already?”

“No,” Jinwoo replies and he cries and cries into his hands until it spills into oceans at his feet. “I would never.” He would never, not ever, because once, he loved this boy very much and you cannot replace people who you loved even if you had only loved them once. They do not go away so easily.

But Seunghoon shakes his head as if he doesn’t believe him, tut tut tutting. “Oh, but you have. You have. You do things with him you did with me. Perhaps, you’ll do even more.” 

“I would never. I would never,” Jinwoo says again into his palms but this sounds like a lie. He has never been very strong to begin with and he never expected the fox with nine tails to be born with nine hearts. Seunghoon knows this too, so he runs a cold hand against Jinwoo’s cheek and another through his hair. 

“It’s lonely here. I’m so lonely. Don’t leave me alone. Come to me or give me another,” he calls, stroking his hands down to Jinwoo’s throat. Seunghoon stares at where his thumbs press in deeply, contemplatively, and this boy does not look like his boy anymore. Jinwoo shivers. 

“I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Seunghoon says and his words come out in a mocking gasp. His thumbs digs in deeper and Jinwoo chokes on spit and tears and the desire for a happiness he doesn’t deserve. “So, will you let me rot alone, this boy that loved you so, who you let die?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. That does nothing,” Seunghoon hums. “Just remember what you’ve done and what you still need to do.” 

Now this is he can do. This is easy because it is hard to forget, because you cannot wash away your sins with sleep and beautiful foxes who look at you as if the stars lived within you. “Okay,” he concedes finally. Seunghoon deserves this at least. “I will.”

Seunghoon smiles at him lovingly, an aching, familiar smile. “Good,” he says. He clutches Jinwoo tighter, tighter, until his vision bursts into spots – but when Jinwoo looks, these hands aren’t Seunghoon’s hands anymore. These hands are his hands. Seunghoon is gone and he is alone and these hands are his hands, the ones around his throat. Jinwoo shudders but he can’t stop it, the way he claws and clutches his neck until his breath comes out in pants. Perhaps he will give Seunghoon what he wants – a soul to keep him company, a soul owed to him. Jinwoo heaves in one last breath and closes his eyes. 

When Jinwoo wakes, he wakes gasping for air, to the moon gleaming outside. It is so hard to breathe and he lurches like a drowning man, shuddering and panting through the lump in his throat. His hands fly up to his neck, to the weight crushing him there but warm fingers reach out to pull them gently to the side instead. He shakes, vision finally focusing. He sees the stars first and then he sees Minho and it becomes easier to breathe. 

“What’s wrong?” Minho asks worriedly, hovering above him, even though he is the one still ill. He wipes at Jinwoo’s forehead with his sleeve, the other hand pressed tightly against Jinwoo’s own. His hand still feels so hot, as if the core of the earth lived in his palms, but his touch is gentle and Jinwoo swallows, shivering still. 

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I – I had a nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks but Jinwoo shakes his head. These thoughts are his thoughts alone and Minho wouldn’t understand what it feels to have loved someone very very much. “That’s – that’s fine,” Minho stutters out, looking partly disappointed. “In your own time then.” 

They stay like that in the silence, just like that, because Minho refuses to move and Jinwoo finds he cannot tell him to when he does not want him to. He is still covered in yesterday’s sweat and there are lines by his temple from a sickness they cannot cure but the light spills onto him like river water and he is so, so lovely with his tails of fire and eyes that glow. Absentmindedly, Jinwoo thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to die like this, eaten by a beautiful nine-tailed fox. When Minho finally falls to his side, wrapping his arms around Jinwoo’s waist and caging him in with long legs, Jinwoo relaxes and bares his throat, prepared. 

But Minho doesn’t eat him, or bite him (and Jinwoo isn’t sure whether he should feel disappointed). Instead, he rests his head against the crook of Jinwoo’s neck and breathes into his skin. When he speaks, Jinwoo feels his lips against him, the way his throat bobs up and down as he swallows. “What do humans dream about?” he asks. Jinwoo laughs, finding him adorable. 

“What do foxes dream about?”

“Many things. I dream of lakes and trees… and people.”

“People?”

“I dream of you,” he says suddenly and his voice sounds very, very small. “Do you dream of me?”

Oh, Jinwoo realises. “I didn’t – no, it wasn’t about you, my nightmare, if that’s what you mean,” he says, feeling the need to assure him. “I dreamt – I dreamt about someone else. Or someone who looked very much like him.”

“Someone else,” Minho repeats. “He must have been fearsome to scare you so much.” His breath is incredibly hot and Jinwoo thinks they’ll go out to the river tomorrow to cool down. If that doesn’t work then he can – he can seek the stone again, one last time. 

“No, not at all. Not the one I remember.” Not at all, not his Seunghoon, of fun and fire and melting sun – but – “But this person who looked like him was,” Jinwoo says. “Don’t you think that’s so cruel, what dreams can do? Take something you love and make you fear it?”

The bed creaks and Jinwoo looks up to see Minho propped up on an elbow, staring back down at him. His other hand runs up and down Jinwoo’s arm soothingly and, in that moment, he looks so completely sincere that Jinwoo would have believed him anything. “I’ll protect you,” he promises, entirely serious. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, or take you where you don’t want to go.”

Jinwoo smiles, covering his eyes with his palms. How sweet, he thinks, and naïve but he acquiesces nevertheless, muttering a simple okay into the bed sheets. Minho flops back down with a grin on his face, holding him tighter and Jinwoo melts into him.

He sleeps through the rest of the night, peacefully, knowing he is safe. 

  
  


This is a fire that burns inside. Stifling and smothering all at once and this isn’t right, this isn’t right. Winter isn’t over yet and the cold is still familiar. Jinwoo feels like the air is being sucked out of him, leaving him dry, and though his head pounds, he forces his eyes open from sleep anyway.

The first thing he catches is the sting of the morning glow, the shadows of a room just awakening. The second is Minho hovering above him, his arms beside Jinwoo’s head. The light spills on him like a crown and Jinwoo would think him unworldly like the fox who swallowed the sun if not for the sweat that pools against his skin and the hair that sticks to his forehead. When Jinwoo swallows, Minho’s stare darts to his neck and the long column of skin there. His head bends down closer until Jinwoo can feel his breath and he sniffs at Jinwoo’s neck lightly, his nose barely grazing the surface. Even then, it feels electric. 

This is too close, too intimate and Jinwoo pushes gently against him. “Are you alright?” he croaks and perhaps it is his voice or the sting of his touch that makes Minho reel back as if he has been burned. Sitting up, he sees Minho wholly. Pale and shaking with his ears turned low, he looks absolutely wrecked.

“I’m – I need to go, I need to go,” he says, leaping onto the other bed. He pushes himself up against the wall and he looks so small suddenly, despite the way his tails consume the room. 

“What? No, you can’t, you’re sick.”

“No, I’m not sick, I wasn’t, it was just – it’s just – ” Minho’s voice comes out in a rasp and he swallows it down like it suffocates him. “I’m in rut.”

“Rut,” Jinwoo drawls out slowly. He’s heard that word before and suddenly, he is reminded that Minho is not as human as he seems. He should have never forgotten. “Like an animal?”

Minho’s ears flatten against his head tightly and his eyes can hardly keep Jinwoo’s own. “Yes,” he says through clenched teeth. “I guess I am like an animal, aren’t I? 

“It’s not spring yet though.”

“I know!” he hisses and when Jinwoo flinches back instinctively, falls in on himself again. “I’m sorry I – I know. But it’s close and my body is preparing early because – because it thinks I’ve found a mate,” he says, softer now, and his eyes glance up at Jinwoo before looking away again. Jinwoo’s breathing hitches. 

“Me?”

“Who else?” Minho asks, creeping closer, and Jinwoo sees it now, this fox with nine tails. “Who else?” He looks dangerous, with his ears pinned back and his tails alive and wanting. When he leaps back onto the bed, Jinwoo holds his breath. 

Minho’s clawed hand comes up to grasp his neck, not tight enough to scar but tight enough to keep him still. A tail runs up his side beneath his shirt, hot and electrifying and his nose grazes against Jinwoo’s chin. He sniffs lightly there, grumbling deeply in a way that sends shivers up Jinwoo’s spine, before running a rough tongue against the skin and this is too much, too much. He flinches and Minho shoots back immediately. 

“I’m so sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry. I have to go, I have to go. Before I – fuck. Sorry,” he stutters, falling off the bed. His eyes are wide and round now but even he can’t fight off the call of the fox and they flicker back and forth into slits sporadically. When he leaps up onto the windowsill like a caged animal, Jinwoo jumps to him out of reflex, shooting up to grab him by the hand. His words tumble about of him before he can even think twice. 

“I don’t mind,” he says, swallowing, and hopes this won’t be another mistake. “Helping you, I mean. Through this.”

Minho turns to him slowly, cautiously. He licks his lips and his voice is low when he speaks next. “Don’t say things like that.” 

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t mean it!” he hisses, springing off the windowsill to push Jinwoo down onto the bed. He cages him between his arms, huffing into his face, and his eyes roam from Jinwoo’s face down to his throat, where it stays there, pinning him down. He looks wild. Jinwoo swallows. 

“What happens if I do?” he asks and gods, he doesn’t know what he’s even saying anymore, he doesn’t. All he knows is that Minho is hurting and he needs him and Jinwoo wants him and – what? He shakes his head, clearing it of fog. It’s too hot in here, he can’t think properly. He only – he only wants to help Minho, that’s all. 

(But even that is dangerous, wanting to help the fox that – that what? What was it again? Minho looks at him with an endless amount of hope and a crushing desire that makes him ache and Jinwoo forgets.)

“Do you? Do you really mean it? Do you know what this means?” Minho says and Jinwoo looks at him entirely, at his clawed hands that hold gently and nine tails that used to mean beware, that now mean home is here. 

“Yes,” he finds himself replying, meaning all of it, and Minho’s grin bursts out of him like moonbeams. This is something dangerous, he thinks, but painfully beautiful all the same and he can’t look away. He wonders when it had all become like this.

“Then I won’t hold back then. I’ll make you feel what you do to me,” Minho growls and his tails expand like beams of light. “My mate.” There is an intensity there, something wholly possessive and instinctual and intimate. It sounds fierce but feels complete and Jinwoo shivers, feeling alive. 

Minho’s hand comes to grip one side of Jinwoo’s neck, pulling it back slightly to reveal a long expanse of unmarked skin. Splayed out like this, Jinwoo feels entirely vulnerable but Minho cradles him in a pillow of fine furs and he relaxes into his hold, tilting his head to give him more. A rumble of approval answers him as Minho’s noses grazes against his pulse point, breathing in deeply this time. 

“You smell so good,” he purrs, licking a strip up Jinwoo’s neck. “So fucking good.” Sharp teeth press into his neck lightly but not enough to break skin, and Jinwoo can’t help it. He groans, pushing up into Minho’s touch until those teeth sink in deeper. Minho’s deep laugh reverberates through him, going straight to his cock. 

“Do humans go into rut too?” he asks, pressing a grin against Jinwoo’s skin. He smooths a rough hand across Jinwoo’s chest, gliding it down until he reaches his stomach and presses there firmly, almost reverently. “Or perhaps heat?”

Jinwoo shivers uncontrollably as Minho’s mouth moves down to lave at his nipple before sucking it into his mouth. This Minho is so different, incredibly confident and controlled and Jinwoo understands now, for a different reason, why they say beware the fox. “Shut – shut up,” he stutters as that hot tongue flicks over his chest and sharp nails pinch at his skin. Minho laughs again, biting gently at his nipple and sucking it in harshly until Jinwoo cries out. His chest throbs unbearably, feeling swollen and raw but even then – even then, he arches into willingly, wanting it all.

“Alright,” Minho says, pulling down Jinwoo’s trousers. His cock springs up, half-hard, and he shudders as the cool air hits it. The head is flushed a deep red, beads of pre-cum gathering at the tip and Minho’s grin is beastly. “You’ll have to keep my mouth occupied with something else then.”

“Gods,” Jinwoo groans, pushing at Minho’s shoulders, completely mortified. “Please stop talking.” 

Minho laughs in response, breathing hot air against the head of his dick and he jerks eagerly. It’s been too long since he’s felt this way and Jinwoo pushes his hips up, chasing that warmth – only to be pushed back down, hips held in place by an almost bruising grip. A high, keening noise fills the room, sounding so completely foreign that Jinwoo doesn’t recognise it as him until Minho runs his rough hands down his legs soothingly. 

“Hush,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Jinwoo’s inner thigh. “Be patient.”

Had he really made that sound? Flushed with embarrassment, he only nods, gripping the bed sheets beside him. Control, he thinks. He’s not the animal here. 

“You are so pretty,” Minho continues and it is so strange to have someone look at him so reverently. He tries to close his legs but Minho pushes them back open firmly, licking a stripe from his balls to the tip of his cock. “All over.” 

A hot, wet mouth sucks at the head of his dick, lapping at the pre-come agonisingly and though Jinwoo tries to buck into the heat, Minho holds him down firmly. He whimpers, feeling that tongue graze at the underside and that mouth slowly, slowly swallow him down. Sharp teeth scrape against it just faintly but it is enough to make him jolt in a strange mixture of desire and pain. He wants to fuck it, he wants to fuck Minho’s pretty throat so bad. This heat is too much and Minho is so sinful, the sounds he makes as he slurps at Jinwoo’s weeping cock obscenely, spit running down his chin. His hand comes to fondle Jinwoo’s balls, massaging them in his palms and his tongue follows, mouthing at the base whilst his fingers graze the soft skin of his perineum. At once, it is too much and not enough and Jinwoo thrusts as much as Minho allows, wanting more. 

“Please – ” he moans out, chest heaving. “More. Please.”

Jinwoo’s only warning is the way Minho’s mouth twitches into a smirk against his skin. In an instant, Minho is back mouthing at the head. He shoots Jinwoo one last long predatory look before he parts his lips wide and swallows him down whole. 

“Fuck!” Jinwoo swears, unable to help himself. Gods, oh gods. It feels like he’s being eaten alive and it is so good, so, so good, the heat and wetness combined. He runs his fingers through the head of hair bobbing between his legs and pulls harshly, watching Minho jerk. “Minho, Minho, oh.”

This time, when Jinwoo tries to fuck that tight mouth, Minho lets him. His hips move of their own accord, thrusting fast and deep into his throat and Minho takes it all, letting himself be used. Jinwoo runs a hand against Minho’s cheek, pressing deeply where his cock juts out. He looks so lewd with his lips wet and stretched tight around a prick, like he was made for it, and it is so fucking hot. When Minho chokes, throat convulsing, Jinwoo stutters and feels it build in his gut. 

“Oh – I’m gonna – I’m gonna come, I’m – ”

All too soon, that tight warmth is gone and Minho pops off Jinwoo’s still-hard cock with a string of spit. A rush of cold air hits him immediately as Minho wraps his hand around the base tightly, painfully, and Jinwoo mewls at the loss.

“Ugh,” he groans disappointedly, throwing his head back. “Why did you stop?”

When Minho doesn’t answer, Jinwoo props himself up on his arms and looks down. Minho’s hands are on his ass, pulling his cheeks apart. The pad of his finger presses against the furled hole there and it twitches against it. He pulls against the sensitive skin, opening him up and Jinwoo feels himself go red, feeling completely exposed.

“Do you have anything? I don’t want to hurt you,” he says quietly but his voice is deep and raw and his gaze never leaves Jinwoo’s ass. It is strange to be looked at so intensely and Jinwoo swallows, trying to think of anything they can use. Spit and water won’t do and they don’t have anything else except – 

Jinwoo leans over to rummage through the bed side table to pull out a familiar, half-empty vial of ointment Seunghoon had used for his bruises. Minho takes it from him, sniffing gently, and his rumble vibrates through the room. “This will do,” he says. He pushes the bottle back into Jinwoo’s hands. “Can you prepare yourself for me?”

Nervously, Jinwoo nods as Minho sits back, watching him closely with a dark, hungry gaze. He lies back down, oiling up his fingers and Minho’s eyes follow his every move as he traces the space between his legs in circles teasingly, fingernails catching against the rim. Achingly slow, he pushes the first finger in. It burns slightly, feeling too foreign but Jinwoo thrusts it in and out, one hand on his weeping cock and he opens up soon enough. Pushing in a second finger, he pumps them in a steady rhythm. It feels impossibly tight but Jinwoo works slowly, searchingly.

“Oh!” Jinwoo’s back arches off the bed as he hits that spot inside him and he strokes himself faster, it in time with his thrusts. He digs the fingers in his ass deeper, pushing up against its soft walls, and delves a thumb into the slit of his dick. That’s the spot and he shudders, fucking into his hand. He scissors himself open wider and then, when even that’s not enough, he slides in a third, swirling his fingers around. Jinwo presses his hips down, fucking his hand harder. Shit, he could probably fit his whole hand if he took his time, if it weren’t for this angle. Maybe he could get Minho to fist him loose, until his ass won’t even close anymore and – 

A deep groan makes him freeze mid thrust. He pulls his fingers out with squelch, sitting up. His hole spasms at the loss but Jinwoo finds he can’t mourn it at all when he catches Minho in front of him, finally naked, stroking himself to the image of Jinwoo’s greedy hole. 

Shit. 

Minho’s cock is long and impossibly thick, the head a deep red. A large vein runs down it from the underside and it throbs under his gaze, pre-come dripping from the tip. Jinwoo wets his lips, wrapping his fingers around the base. Heavy and hot in his hand and Jinwoo licks at it tentatively. It tastes bitter and salty and addicting all at once. Gods, he wants it in his mouth, he thinks, and flushes pink when Minho laughs, realising he’s spoken out loud. 

Disappointingly, Minho pulls away and nudges him back down on the bed. “Not today,” he says darkly, flipping him on all fours. He pushes Jinwoo’s shoulders down, propping his ass high in the air. Cold lube drips between his chicks and Jinwoo shivers as a thumb presses it inside his squelching hole. “I need to be inside you today. Fill you up.”

Jinwoo’s cock pulses and he pushes back against the cock now sliding between his ass, feeling every word. The head of it mouths at his hole, warm and wet, and he can’t help but flinch away despite how much his body aches for it. It feels impossibly big, larger than his fingers, and it won’t fit, it’s too big, it won’t, it won’t, it – 

“Shh. Relax, it’s okay. Just relax, I’ll go slow,” Minho says, stroking his stomach. The weight against his hole still feels heavy but Minho’s voice is so soothing, Jinwoo can’t help but go limp as Minho opens him up. 

The tip of Minho’s cock enters with a pop and Jinwoo’s ass mouths as it greedily in spasms. Jinwoo keens.

“Fuck, fuck. You take it so well, you’re doing so well,” Minho rumbles as he presses in deeper, achingly slow. It feels so big and Jinwoo cries out as he pushes back on it, wanting more. Like this, he can feel every vein and curve, the way it pulses inside. 

Minho stops when he bottoms out, trying to let him adjust but Jinwoo doesn’t want that. He thrusts back on the cock in his ass harshly and Minho moans, digging his nails into Jinwoo’s waist. 

“Move,” he demands and he wonders which one of them is the one in rut again. Minho chuckles, pulling out with only the head inside before snapping his hips hard, burying himself completely inside. 

“Ah!”

“Like this? Is this what you wanted? My greedy human in heat.” 

All too soon, Minho is setting up a brutal pace, fucking Jinwoo into the bed as he scrambles against the sheets for purchase. The sound is so lewd. Minho’s balls slap against his ass with every thrust as he pants in his ear, licking and nipping at his neck. He thinks Minho’s growling but it’s hard to hear over his own mewls when all he can focus on is the cock in his ass and the nails at his waist.

A thumb rubs at where they join, pressing at his hole and suddenly, Jinwoo freezes. 

“No – ” he starts because he feels so, so full – but he knows if Minho did, he’d take it all for him. “I can’t – ”

“Shh. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I just want to feel me inside you,” Minho murmurs, circling the ring almost reverently. Time stretches between them and all Jinwoo can hear is the sound of their breathing – but then, it is gone and Minho’s hands are back at his waist, squeezing tightly. The air turns slow. 

“Gods, you’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful and I’m so lucky. What did I do to get you?” he rambles. He leans over, linking their hands. Minho presses soft kisses against his neck and this – this feels like something different now. This is not the heat and the rut and the frenzy anymore. Minho touches him gently, speaks to him softly. He shivers, half-afraid and wholly undeserving. 

“I’m not – I’m not,” he says and his chest tightens unbearably. He is none of that at all but Minho ignores him, continuing still to a slower, gentle rhythm. 

“I’m going to take care of you. I’ll keep you safe. You won’t ever have to be sad anymore. I’ll be enough for you, I promise.” 

Jinwoo doesn’t want to cry, he doesn’t want to cry, he won’t, he won’t – but Minho says enough like he says home and Jinwoo finds, uncontrollably, that he wants for nothing more than that. 

_How cruel_ , the wind blows and this is the voice that haunts him. _Have you forgotten me?_

Jinwoo presses his tears into the pillow and a hand against Minho’s mouth. “You talk too much,” he murmurs. The wind stops. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just – I’m so happy,” Minho whispers into Jinwoo’s shoulder. Jinwoo thinks he feels something wet against his skin and suddenly he aches to see Minho’s face, the one that looks down at him like night stars and morning sun combined. 

He reaches back, pushing him away, and Minho’s cock slips out of him. His ass gapes achingly. “I want to see you. Let me see you,” he says, turning over. 

When he finally sees Minho, Jinwoo’s breath hitches. Red eyed and red cheeked, this is a picture that makes his heart ache overwhelmingly. But even then, even like this, it is Minho who reaches out to cup Jinwoo’s cheek tenderly.

“You’re – you’re crying. Oh. Did I hurt you?” 

“No,” Jinwoo says. “Not at all. Anything but.” 

Minho’s grin is otherworldly. All teeth and wet eyes and he is beautiful in a way Jinwoo has never thought anybody beautiful, in a way he has never thought beautiful could be. He lunges at Jinwoo excitedly, pressing an open mouth to his lips and Jinwoo gasps into it. Too much teeth and too much tongue but Minho’s enthusiasm is lightning and Jinwoo feels warmed and whole and alive completely. “This is what humans do, isn’t it? To tell somebody they love them,” Minho asks when he pulls away.

Jinwoo smiles, nodding, and finds himself uncontrollably wanting to kiss him back. He leaps forward, wrapping his arms around Minho’s neck, but hot hands push him back down onto the bed before he can press his lips against that inviting mouth. He feels Minho’s cock pressing against him again, his teeth against his neck.

“The gods have blessed me with you,” Minho says and pushes in slowly, gentler still. Still sore, it catches on the rim but Jinwoo accommodates for it easily, as if this was a thing from forever. He sighs into the covers, memorising the freckles on Minho’s skin.

A hand comes around to stroke his cock, squeezing and stroking fast. When Jinwoo opens up, Minho snaps his hips faster, harder, and digs his fingers into skin. It burns but Minho angles and hits that spot just there and Jinwoo forgets it entirely, arching up into the body above him. Fingers reach up to pinch at his chest and teeth drag against his neck, nipping gently to leave a trail of blushing skin. Minho looks down at him, hungry and sweaty and completely tender and it is all too much, this suffocating feeling of being revered. He is so, so close, he can feel it in his gut, and he drives back onto the cock in his ass, chasing release. 

“Minho – Minho – I’m – ” Jinwoo stutters and feels his chest explode, his gut tightening. He shudders uncontrollably, spurting onto the sheets as Minho strokes him through it all, milking him dry. Stomach warmed and sticky but Minho runs his fingers through his cum anyway and sucks it into his mouth with a sharp smirk. Jinwoo shivers. He feels completely drained and sensitive but Minho continues to hold him up by the waist anyway, fucking him through the haze. His rhythm is slovenly as he ruts and Jinwoo keens, feeling too soft and too loose. 

The real pain comes when Minho does. It bursts from Jinwoo’s shoulder, scorching fiercely. Like blunt knives tearing into him and Jinwoo can’t help but whimper as he tries to jerk away from it instinctively. He pulls to the side harshly but those teeth follow, digging in deeper, and a feral growl rips through the air. Jinwoo’s heart stutters in his chest. He freezes in his spot. Warm blood drips down his skin where those teeth have embedded themselves into his flesh agonisingly.

(Will this be how he dies?)

(No – don’t – don’t think like that. Calm down. Minho would never. This is a part of the claiming, don’t you remember?)

Jinwoo relaxes enough to breathe, to remember that this is the fox who promised to never let anyone hurt him.

Finally, Minho falls to the side. His shoulder still throbs excruciatingly but that sharp sting is gone, replaced by a rough tongue lapping gently. It is relieving, like water after fire and Minho whines against him in apology. 

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” he says but Minho continues to lap at his wound anyway, arms wrapped around him tightly. This time, the wound doesn’t heal. 

Jinwoo shivers when Minho’s cock slips out, a mixture of come and lube leak from him. He shivers. Large tails come up to blanket them, covering him up but it is too hot and so Jinwoo pushes them away. 

Minho nips gently at his neck in response and drapes his tails over him tighter. “Mine. My mate,” he claims. 

Jinwoo hums. He thinks he likes the sound of that. “Okay. Then you’re my kitten.”

“Fox. I’m a fox,” Minho pouts and Jinwoo laughs, running his hands through Minho’s hair. 

“My fox, I mean,” he replies fondly and Minho snuggles into the crook of his neck, kissing his wound as if it was something divine. 

_Traitor,_ he hears someone whisper to him. The wind beats outside violently but Minho holds him closer still and Jinwoo thinks that, like this, he can ignore it for now.

  
  


It only hits him once it’s over, the entirety of what he has done. His eyes flutter open to the morning light and for a moment, Jinwoo revels in it. He hasn’t felt this warm in a very long time and it is so nice to be held so adoringly. He buries himself deeper amongst soft tails, against this broad chest, and listens to the winds beating outside. 

The winds. The winds are howling. 

Jinwoo bolts up like lightning, the ache in his back blooming out like veins and he remembers everything now. His chest is still sticky, a familiar dampness between his legs. Oh, dear gods, he thinks. What has he done? His stomach lurches and he heaves, desperate for air. His throat feels tight again. 

Minho startles awake to the sound of Jinwoo retching and he bolts up immediately. “What’s wrong?” A warm hand comes to cup him by the cheek but these rough fingers brush against the bite mark at his neck, red and raw, and Jinwoo flinches away. His body feels like fire and this is hell, here to claim him. 

“I’ve done something horrible,” he admits quietly. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness anymore. 

“Oh,” Minho’s hand falls to the bed and his face is worn when he looks at him, taunt and unsure. He licks his lips, eyes roaming over Jinwoo searchingly. “You mean,” he says, gesturing at the empty space between them. “You mean this?”

“Yes.”

Minho sucks in a breath, body hunched forward as he sits on his knees. He suddenly looks far younger than he did yesterday. “Is it so horrible? Horrible because you – because you don’t like me like that, because you regret it? Or because you thought you were taking advantage of me and the heat?” he says, sounding desperate. “Because I want you to know I – I meant everything I said and did, it wasn’t the rut, it was me and I – I…” 

“Because I know what you did,” Jinwoo says, cutting him off. 

“What?”

“I know. Did you think I didn’t? Did you think I was an idiot?” he spits out, crueller than he means to but it is hard now, it is hard because his heart beats fast and he remembers it all, he sees it all – this mouth that says I’ll give you everything, these teeth that did anything but. “I know what you did to him.”

Did you know? There is not much you can do to kill a fox, but you can hurt it very badly. How much can a fox cry, Jinwoo wonders, as Minho’s face collapses, as his tails droop around him like water. “Then why? Why did you – ”

“I wanted to hurt you.” Jinwoo lies but it hits, and Minho understands. 

His hands fall limp to his sides and his stare grows hollow, looking straight through him. “Oh,” he breathes out. His body collapses beneath him and he falls to the bed, face buried in his palms. “Oh.” 

Jinwoo listens to him hiccup, to the soft, muffled shudders of a tortured fox. His chest throbs unbearably and he is not sure for who it aches for anymore. “So you never – you never really liked me? Not even once? It was all – it was all part of some scheme?” he hears Minho ask desperately. He sounds so broken, like the fox he first found in the forest, that Jinwoo wants to tell him no, not at all. Not at all. He never planned for this, for the monster who swallowed the sun to be the one to bring it back. 

But these are words he cannot say. He has been weak for too long, he has let himself forget. So Jinwoo buries it down and lets the silence answer for him instead. For him, it says more than that. It says, I liked you more than once, and still now. For Minho, it is something entirely, some sort of revelation that a fox can never truly be loved, even by the kindest of people, and he sobs into his hands. “Not even once… not even once…” he chants brokenly. It spills out from behind his fingers like rain, and Jinwoo wonders why Minho is the one crying when it is he who has lost everything. This bed doesn’t smell like firewood anymore. The clothes in the cupboard feel of orange fur. He wants it back, he wants it all back – his Seunghoon, his life, his normal, normal life, when he didn’t have to choose between loyalty to a boy he once loved or happiness from a fox who took him away.

His mouth moves on its own. “Give him back to me,” he demands. “Give him back.”

Minho shakes his head, buried against the blankets. “I can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he shudders and it feels like a confession. Jinwoo feels his blood grow cold, his heart stutter in his chest. He can’t deny it now and it aches horribly to know that he has nothing left, to have it all confirmed.

“What did he say?” he asks, head tilted towards the ceiling. He just wants to know, he just wants this – this last part of Seunghoon he left behind.

For a moment, Minho stiffens. Then, slowly, he lifts up his head and rises from the bed, gaze glued to the floor. “I don’t – I don’t think – ”

“Tell me,” Jinwoo insists. “Did he call for me? Did he say my name? Tell me.” Minho gulps. His eyes are red when he looks at him. 

“Help me,” he whispers. “He said, Jinwoo, help me.”

Oh.

Jinwoo hunches over, falling into a heap. Bile rises to his throat and it burns, he burns all over. He heaves dryly, feeling sick and disgusting and here it is, this guilt that has come to swallow him whole. Digging his fingernails into the wound at his neck, he claws at it until it bleeds. Go away, go away, he wants this all to go away, this mistake that has robbed him of everything. It is so hard to breathe, it is so hard to think and Minho’s hisses hardly register over the sound of _help me, help me._

Seunghoon, oh, his precious Seunghoon. He has done him so wrong, his Seunghoon who only wanted to live, who only wanted his help.

(But he could not help him then and he cannot help him now and he understands then, in clarity, what people mean when they say useless.)

“Stop! Stop, please! You’re hurting yourself!” Minho calls out to him but Jinwoo smacks him away fiercely. He kicks, scratching at the hands holding him down until they draw blood and – 

Jinwoo stops, looking at his fingers. This blood isn’t Minho’s. He wipes his hands against the sheets and stains them red too. He stares, unmoving, at the mess he has made.

“Please leave me alone,” he says finally. It comes out a murmur.

“Jinwoo, I – ” 

“Leave me alone,” he says again coldly. He collapses onto the bed, turning away from him. “You’ve done enough.”

For a second, the weight of a hand lingers over Jinwoo’s head – but then it is gone as quickly as it had appeared and some part of him feels strangely disappointed. The bed dips and rises, the door clicks shut. 

When he opens his eyes, Minho is gone but wind still howls, waiting for him.

  
  


There is a river by the forest. In the day, it rumbles, chained to bedrocks. At night, the moon lights it awake and it licks up against the banks like a creature starved. Jinwoo falls to his knees beside it and watches his reflection crash and break against the waves. He presses his forehead to wet grass and prays. 

Dear forest, he says. Help me. 

Help this boy born from you, grown from your soil and fed by your winds. He has failed you but he can do no more. He is so weak and foxes can be so lovely and it is so hard to hurt what heals you. So, will you accept him instead? This boy who could not kill the monster who looks like him. Will you give him peace?

The water laps at his feet. _Yes,_ it croons. _Come to us. Return the stone. We’ll wash you clean._

Clean. Jinwoo likes this. He would like to be clean. So, he sinks into the water and breathes it in and lets it consume him. Slowly, slowly, and the forest comes to rest in him.

When he closes his eyes, Seunghoon is there to welcome him home.


End file.
